Who We Are

About Us

Parallel Networks, Inc. was founded by uniquely qualified individuals all dedicated to combating hate and extremism. This synergistic mix of two 'former' jihadists, the former head of the NYPD Intelligence Division and experienced writers and researchers forms the core of a team at the center of the institution. They include:

Jesse Morton

Jesse Morton was once a prominent radicalizer in the West. As a co-founder and chief propagandist of Revolution Muslim, a New York City-based group active in the 2000s, he helped to insert the narrative of Al-Qaeda and Salafi-jihadist ideology into the American ambit. Morton had direct contact with some of the most prominent extremist preachers in the West. Revolution Muslim was connected to a number of terrorism cases.

Jesse holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Human Services and a Master’s in International Relations from Columbia University, with a concentration on the Middle East and nonprofit management. He has lectured at Imam Muhammad ibn Saud University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and Sunderland University in Casablanca, Morocco, and is widely read in classical Islamic theology and jurisprudence and historical relations between the United States and Middle Eastern nations. He was included in Foreign Policy Magazine's 2017 'Global Thinkers' listing and is a certified substance abuse and mental health counselor in New York State.

Jesse worked briefly at George Washington University’s Program on Extremism, while there he focused on issues such as the propaganda of terrorist organizations, Islamic and jihadist ideology, countering radicalization and extremism and promoting disengagement. He currently consults with organizations countering violent extremism and is the research coordinator of the Institute for Strategic Dialogue's Against Violent Extremism (AVE) Network in North America.

Mitch Silber

Mitch Silber is a founding partner of the Guardian Group, an intelligence and security-consulting firm.

Mr. Silber is a professional global political risk and intelligence analyst and has more than 20 years of experience creating, building and leading analytic teams and organizations dedicated to providing high-end finished intelligence, bespoke consulting and advisory work for a wide range of corporate, financial and governmental clients. He is a regular commentator on political risk and terrorism related issues for both print and broadcast news outlets.

At FTI Consulting, Mr. Silber was the founder and head of the Geopolitical Intelligence practice. Before FTI, he served for more than three years as the Executive Managing Director of the Threat Intelligence and Data Analytics practice areas at K2 Intelligence. Prior to his work at K2, Mr. Silber served as Director of Intelligence Analysis at the New York City Police Department (“NYPD”) and was responsible for building out and managing the Analytic and Cyber Units. He supervised the research, collection and analysis for the Intelligence Division’s entire portfolio of ongoing terrorism related investigations and was responsible for strategic assessments of emerging and future threats to the City of New York. Mr. Silber was involved in internal planning, development and new unit creation for the department and initiated and managed relations with foreign intelligence and law enforcement agencies.

Mr. Silber has presented on behalf of the NYPD to the White House, the National Security Council, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the National Counter Terrorism Center, and has testified before the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. He also co-authored the 2007 NYPD report “Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat,” and is the author of The Al Qaeda Factor: Plots Against the West, published in 2012 by the University of Pennsylvania Press.

Mr. Silber is a visiting lecturer at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (“SIPA”) where he teaches a course on Modern Urban Terrorism. He also serves on the Dean’s Advisory Board at SIPA and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Tania Joyia

Tania Joya is a British born citizen who was married to the most senior American member of the Islamic State; John Georgelas a convert from Texas. Their relationship and John’s commitment to the radical beliefs of Al Queda and eventually The Islamic State took Tania and her children through conflict zones in Egypt, Turkey, and Syria.

From the Zahiri school of thought, Tania (along with John) rejected qiyas, urf, and learned the points of ijma that was the consensus of the companions of The Prophet. Dhahiri fiqh made Tania a literalist interested in linguistics, small-government, low taxes similar to the Libertarian views in the United States. Researching this, Tania studied "founding fathers" like Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin and Alexander Hamilton. Through their logic, philosophy and poetry she learned the concept of inalienable rights. Most of all she developed a burning desire for freedom as outlined in The Declaration of Independence and The Bill of Rights.Tania escaped with her three children while pregnant with her fourth from Syria via a human smuggler in 2014.

Tania's story has been featured in The Atlantic, The New York Times (Live), The Times of London, and Texas Monthly. Her story is also featured in Graeme Wood's The Way of the Strangers: Encounters with the Islamic State.Tania has now devoted herself to preventing the kind of radicalization that once seduced her.

Juncal Fernández-Garayzábal

Juncal Fernández-Garayzábal is a Phd in International Migrations and Cooperation for Development. Her expertise ranges from forced migrations to organized crime and security, with a specialization in human trafficking. Her dissertation drew parallels between the recruitment techniques utilized by human trafficking networks and those employed by extremist networks. For this, she used ISIS as a case study. She now advocates for reintegration and rehabilitation techniques employed with human trafficking survivors being tailored to meet the needs of former extremists and returning foreign fighters.

Juncal has collaborated on projects with Comillas Pontifical University’s University Institute of Studies on Migrations (IUEM), The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies (HCSS) and Georgetown University’s Institute for the Study of International Migrations (ISIM). She has contributed to important policy papers such as HCSS’s Strategic Monitor (2015) and other EU-security related projects, for instance “The evolving concept of security: A critical evaluation across four dimensions” (otherwise known as EvoCS). She has also authored papers such as “Prevención, Identificación e Intervención post-Barcelona: una estrategia de comunicación holística para la lucha contra la radicalización,” where she explained the applicability of the ‘parallel network concept’ to counter radicalization in the Spanish context.

She has combined her academic knowledge with field experiences in different countries, such as Peru and Equatorial Guinea, were she gained expertise in political advocacy, sensitization campaigns and developing private-public partnerships.

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Welcome to the Small Worlds Blog

The Small Worlds blog is a blog run by Parallel Networks co-founder, Jesse Morton.
Jesse Morton is a former jihadi. As Younus Abdullah Mohammed, Jesse Morton was a prominent radical propagandizing on behalf of Al-Qaeda from 2005 to 2011. He worked alongside the most influential jihad preachers in recent years, and is widely read in Islamic history, theology, jurisprudence and religion in general. He holds and undergraduate degree in Human Services and a Master in International Relations, with a concentration in the Middle East and non-profit management. He holds particular expertise on jihadi ideology, foreign affairs, countering violent extremism and all things ISIS and al-Qaeda related. After working in the field of academia, he helped found Parallel Networks.